daily

The most important thing I recently realized is that motivation is not the same as perseverance. Motivation is the kick of excitement and inspiration that propels us towards our goals, and perseverance is our ability to continue to work towards them, even after all of the fun, excitement and pride from starting something new has faded. Perseverance comes from the inside, whatever drives us towards the unique achievements we dream about. Motivation comes from the outside; people who are doing great things that we believe in, and images or videos that make us want to create and experience new things. I, like a good amount of people, tend to respond very positively to motivation, but have trouble persevering when I have a lack of motivation. The hardest part of achieving things is staying on task and maintaining our resolve; think of all the things we could do if we never got bored!

David Foster Wallace put it best:

I wanted to figure out how I could keep my goals up front in my daily life, basically I needed more motivation to continue perseverance. I looked at what I have been most drawn to lately, and of course my journal full of quotes was an obvious clue. I decided to make an inspiration wall in my sewing room, right above the sewing machine so I would be looking at it everyday. I’ve collected 20 or so quotes that are powerful to me, and have printed them out on cardstock to hang. Because I am on a budget, and also because I didn’t want to assign myself more work by going out to buy all the frames and hang them, I decided to tape them up. I will post pictures as soon as I have them up, but in the meanwhile look at the pictures that inspired me! I’m hoping this will be a fun, low maintenance solution to adding more motivation to my life.